July 9 – Preliminary investigations into the cell responsible for Tuesday’s bombings in Damascus have shown it was affiliated with Islamic State, a senior Syrian security official said on Thursday.
• “We were able to track down one member of the cell responsible for the July 7 Damascus bombings, and by monitoring him we identified the rest of the group’s members,” Ahmad al-Dalati, head of internal security in the Damascus countryside, told Syrian state-run Ekhbariya TV.
• Interior Minister Anas Khattab said earlier on Thursday that authorities would reveal the identities of the cell’s members, their roles and all their links after investigations were completed.
• Two bombs exploded on Tuesday near a hotel in Damascus where French President Emmanuel Macron spent the night, wounding 18 people and overshadowing the first visit to Syria by a European Union head of state since Bashar al-Assad was toppled. REUTERS